Tag: comedy

For better and for worse, The Little Prince does a lot with very little. The film takes a short, surreal children’s tale and frames it within an all new story in the “real world” meant to contextualize the story’s importance. Despite the inherent arrogance of deciding a worldwide bestseller requires contextualization, the approach is actually largely effective… until it isn’t. Perhaps 50% of the film feels like an unquestionable animated masterpiece – gorgeous, thought provoking, and touching in ways that rival the best Pixar has to offer. Another 25% of…

[Pictured above. The face you will make during the majority of this picture.] The entire process of reviewing a work of art is subjective. Everyone places a slightly different emphasis on different aspects that are important to a piece, not to mention having different opinions about how well those pieces work. But Comedy films are a particularly tough nut to crack. A joke that simply works for one person, simply won’t for another, often regardless of how well thought out the joke is, or how it’s told. Sausage Party falls…

There was a time, not so long ago, when cartoons were just expected to make us laugh. Maybe a feature would have an exciting adventure, or a lesson about togetherness – y’know… family friendly stuff. But as long as it was a hoot to watch it was fulfilling its animated destiny. Then Pixar came along and ruined it for everyone. Their films had all of those qualities, plus human themes that nearly always brought us to tears. With a light touch, Pixar made us rethink what it meant to be…

Hunt For the Wilderpeople is among the best movies that 2016 has to offer. It has heart and humor blended with a tonal balance that many directors can only dream of – often managing to be cartoonishly silly and deeply serious in the same breath. It also may star one of the most lovable odd couples ever committed to film – Ricky Baker and Hector “Hec” Faulkner. Julian Dennison is a revelation of charm as Ricky – foster child and gangsta aficionado. He boasts the same rough-around-the-edges earnestness that made the kids…

The level of vitriol that has been directed towards the lady-led Ghostbusters reboot is beyond the pale. Over at my day job at Screen Rant, every Ghostbusters related news update is met by at least a few comments telling us we shouldn’t even be reporting on it. As if, like the mainstream media’s coverage of Donald Trump, we are treating a great evil in the world as normal, and should really just stop giving it attention. Hilarious, considering the “controversy” they are stirring is turning the reboot of a comedy…

Swiss Army Man is storytelling at its finest. It’s immature, gross, insecure, ridiculous, and deeply, deeply human. Its profundity doesn’t come in spite of its base nature, but because of it. It explores the shame we have in being dead men walking, and the pretense in imagining that we’re more than a brain/soul/what-have-you piloting a walking, talking, farting meat robot. It’s a weird, meandering, sometimes depressing movie that may turn you off entirely, and you absolutely must see it.

A lot of you may be wondering how mild mannered blogger, The Powerwolf, managed to land a gig writing part-time for a mighty internet powerhouse like Screen Rant. Well the answer is Hard Work. Hard Work, and having lots of opinions and then writing about them, and then creating a news article sample in the style of a Screen Rant article whilst slowly descending into a dream-like chaos that I may never return from.

I can’t imagine a better Lonely Island movie than Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Everything that works about the musical comedy trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone is operating on overdrive here, from the obvious chemistry that the trio have as long time friends to the satire of the self-important pop culture attitude. If you’ve heard “I’m On a Boat,” you’ll know exactly the kind of hilariously narcissistic nonsense that Popstar has in store.

James Gunn set a new trend in film a year before Guardians of the Galaxy even released into theaters, and it all started with the AWESOME MIX VOL. 1. When the film’s teaser trailer released, thousands of digital purchases for the song “Hooked on a Feeling” immediately followed. The obscure but fun oldie contrasted and complemented the sci-fi visuals so succinctly that audiences immediately were on board with a movie starring a talking tree and machine-gun-wielding raccoon. Seemingly overnight, popular action movies like Suicide Squad and Star Trek Beyond also had classic pop songs in their trailers. As James Gunn put it, “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”

The Lobster is a difficult movie to describe, but people who’ve seen Terry Gilliam‘s Brazil will have a general idea of the odd, stilted, cynical humor that makes the film unique in its class. The two films also share semi-sci-fi dystopian premises, but grand production design and a sense of adventure is nowhere to be found in The Lobster. The film is, perhaps, one of the most atypical examples of an indie rom-com that I’ve seen.